Kitchen Island Makeover

Cue music: The hills are alive with the sound of music! (sung in the best Julie Andrews impression I can manage).

The oh-so-ugly, boring builder grade island has had its makeover and is ready to make its debut!

Remember the before?

I took all your advice and suggestions from the Island Ideas post on how to spruce up the island and applied it. Thank you for your input!

Home Depot supplied the half newel posts, and bead board wainscot. I only used 1 package of wainscot and 4 newel half posts.

After connecting 3 sections of bead board together I liberally applied Liquid Nails and then pressed it onto the side of the island

and taped it with painters tape to secure the board in place while it set up.

**For all who ask, YES, I usually wear heels, dress jeans, nice clothes, etc. while I DIY.

And YES it drives my family nuts, and YES I mess up my clothes sometimes, but that’s just the way I roll.**

While waiting for the Liquid Nails to set up, I measured the height from the floor to under the counter

and trimmed the half newel posts to that measurement. **Always wear your safety glasses.**

The Liquid Nails was applied to the back of the newel posts, pressed into place, secured with painters tape and allowed to set up overnight.

I added pre-primed 6 inch baseboard and nail gunned it into place.

A strip of cove molding was also added and nailed into place to give a more finished look under the counter.

All seams were caulked with white, paintable caulk and then the entire island was primed with Kilz.

The countertop is this wonderful product called Cambria, “Victoria”. It is natural quartz and I LOVE IT!!!

I chose to bring out the black accent in the Cambria so I painted the island black.

The floors were taped off and the island received 2 coats (brushed on) of a high gloss enamel then one coat of semi-gloss poly-crylic.

If I had to do this over I would choose a satin sheen vs. the high gloss enamel.

The same went with the cupboard doors, but that paint was applied using a smooth sponge roller.

And everything was given a light sanding between coats of paint with a superfine sanding block.

I’m pleased with the results and surprised at how adding simple moldings can richly improve appearances.

Thank you dear friends for all your suggestions! I hope you like the results as much as I do!

 

Kim

Linking up to: